A background discussion of certain issues in the art is provided in U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,750 issued Sep. 9, 1997 to Cohen; Edward and entitled Camera Mount, which patent is incorporated herein by reference as if set forth herein in its entirety. Additional patents and published patent applications were also cited and incorporated by reference in U.S. Pat. App. Ser. No. 61/938,526 to Ronsheim, filed Feb. 11, 2014 (herein “the Ronsheim provisional”), the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
While the prior art vision support systems discussed in the Ronsheim provisional are extremely robust and work well, they do require the tightening of eight screws to fasten the separate cap portion to the separate body portion to fixedly hold the ball of the arm in the socket of the body. Such prior art vision support systems thus require the manufacture, assembly, and adjustment of multiple parts and numerous fasteners. Also, the aforementioned prior art vision support systems are provided with only one “range notch,” so the 150-degree rotation range is available in only one direction.
Another prior art support system is manufactured by A&P Tool, Inc. under the brand name Swivel Link®, an example of which is shown and discussed in the background section of the Ronsheim provisional.
One disadvantage of the Swivel Link® brand support system shown in the background section of the Ronsheim provisional is that it requires multiple separate relatively bulky parts and fasteners in addition to the arm, namely a base and a collar, where the collar wraps around and tightens against a ball on the base and also wraps around and tightens against a ball on the arm. Also, these Swivel Link® brand support systems are provided with “range notches” in only one direction.
Numerous other structures have been disclosed in the prior art, some of which were identified in the background section of the Ronsheim provisional. While various adjustable attachment mechanisms have previously been disclosed, a need remains for a modern, robust, attachment apparatus, system, and method that can be easier and quicker to use while being less expensive to manufacture.